RHH's photos with the keyword: invasion

This restored M4a1 Sherman Tank with the name Cannon Ball II is not the tank, also named "Cannon Ball" that landed at Utah Beach on June 6, 1944. That tank was later destroyed in battle. This tank did not land in France until December, 1944, in time for the Battle of the Bulge.

This is the museum at Utah Beach which we visited while in Normandy.

This memorial, the Cross of Lorraine, is near the Juno Beach Center, one of the British landing sites on D-Day, June 6, 1944. It marks the place where the Free French troops and General De Gaulle came ashore on D-Day.

On June 6, 1944, this was Sword Beach, one of the British landing sites. Visiting the beach today it is difficult to imagine that it was the site of a pitched battle, the beach filled with soldiers and all the equipment of war and the sea filled with ships of every kind.

Also know as the Mad Piper of Sword Beach, Billy Millin was personal piper to Lord Lovat, commander of the British 1st Special Service Brigade. Of Scottish descent but born in Canada, he had joined the British Army and took part in the D-Day landings, piping his Brigade ashore at Sword Beach and then again piping them across Pegasus Bridge where they joined up with the airborne troops. The statue commemorating his bravery is near Sword Beach between Ouistreham and Lion-sur-Mer.

The Merville Battery was an important German fortification and part of Hitler's Atlantic Wall. It is now part of a large World War II museum.